DAILY NEWS
Borough Bites
AFFORDABLE DINING
by Steve McFarland
   ***
Daily News ratings, from zero to four stars, are based on the total dining experience — food quality, atmosphere, service and value.
COMMMENTS: The facade is modest but the Cabana is actually a good sized, high-ceilinged sort of place once you get inside.
The space is long and relatively narrow, but the decor, running to bright tropical colors, shows it off to its best advantage. It is also hung with lively and agreeable pictures of country scenes in the Caribbean.
Service is friendly, cheerful and efficient. The menu runs heavily to Jamaican dishes, but there are also some offerings from other cultures of the Caribbean.
An appetizer of Jamaican cod fish cakes with a hot dipping sauce was excellent. The cakes were large and crisply fried, mellow and satisfying.
Even better was an appetizer of conch fritters, a toothsome deep-fry of the battered meat of the large shell fish that proliferate in the Bahamas...
The Cabana version of jerk chicken, the traditional Jamaican dish, was a good-sized half chicken marinated in the peppery jerk sauce and barbequed over an oak fire.
The meat of the chicken under its nicely charred skin was juicy and flavorful. It was efficiently highlighted by the piquant spices of the marinade.
Also very good were jerk pork chops. Marinated in the same mixture as the chicken, they were slightly crusty but tender and peppery.
Arroz con pollo was real comfort food, copious and flavorful with olives, peppers and chorizo sausage livening up the basic combination of rice and chicken.
A Trinidadian chicken curry with potatoes, carrots and yucca was also very nice, though somewhat milder than most curries. All the main courses were served with excellent rice and beans. The jerk chicken and pork were accompanied by savory sauteed cabbage. Servings are quite generous.
Cabana has lots of beers from the U.S. and abroad, including several from the Caribbean. There is also a fairly good selection of wines.
The house specialty drinks, though, are fruit shakes — mango, guava, passion fruit and others — which are offered both with and without alcohol as daiquiris or pina coladas.

Newsday
QUEENS TOP 10 RESTAURANTS
by Peter M. Gianotti
Cabana celebrates the sun, the sea and the food of the Caribbean. The little restaurant itself is a burst of yellow, with stylized paintings of tropical scenes. And the mood is that of a continual party. Recommended dishes: spicy chicken wings; coconut crusted shrimp; conch fritters; ropa vieja, or shredded skirt steak with tomatoes, peppers and onions; mincocho, a sturdy and thick beef stew; maduros, the fried sweet and ripe plantains, and the house's fruit drinks.